Acehnese students celebrate repairs to their tsunami-damaged school. Photo by TARMIZY HARVA
LONDON (AlertNet)- Almost four years after hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, Islamic NGOs are still battling suspicions that they are fronts for terrorists, but realise they have a long way to go to meet the professional standards of the mainstream international humanitarian community.
In response to these concerns, British charity Islamic Relief is spearheading a drive to set up a new body aimed at helping Muslim aid agencies become more professional and make their accounts transparent, while building links with non-Islamic humanitarian organisations.
"The real motivation behind the whole proposal is to help Islamic NGOs who have been targeted for suspicion, based on insinuation, to be given the ability and the opportunity to practice their humanitarian mandate," Islamic Relief spokesman Adeel Jafferi told AlertNet.
"In order to do that, they need to have certain regulations and methods of good governance so people can tell they&${esc.hash}39;re not doing anything other than their humanitarian mandate."
The Islamic tradition of charity is ancient and well established, but many Muslim relief organisations have only recently started engaging in debate about standards of accountability to donors and aid recipients.
Such debates have been raging in the wider humanitarian community for a couple of decades now -- and have taken on increased urgency since the U.S.-led "war on terror".
Post-September 11, many Muslim charities say they are operating in a climate of fear and suspicion that borders on persecution.
"Islamic Relief has been fortunate in that, although we have experienced problems, they haven&${esc.hash}39;t been as acute and as damaging as some of the other organisations we&${esc.hash}39;re speaking on behalf of," Jafferi said.
"But we have been placed on certain lists. We have had difficulties transferring funds from one office to another, because of the suspicion of laundering money."
About 30 Islamic NGOs have been blacklisted by the United States to date on suspicion of serving as fronts for extremist groups.
The crackdown comes at a time Islamic NGOs are as active as ever in humanitarian hotspots in predominantly Muslim areas such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and tsunami-hit Aceh in Indonesia.
The new climate has affected Muslim charities in the Arab world too, as countries such as Saudi Arabia seek to prove to Western allies that they will not tolerate any undercover funding for armed groups working against the West.
ENTERING THE MAINSTREAMIslamic Relief proposes the creation of an Islamic-led entity described as a "humanitarian forum" aimed at building bridges and helping smaller NGOs sign up to the kinds of global standards that are taken for granted by many international non-Muslim charities.
Islamic Relief President Hany El Banna presented his group&${esc.hash}39;s brainchild at a meeting in late June in London that was attended by high-level representatives of Muslim charities, international NGOs, U.N. organisations and governments.
The idea is that the "humanitarian forum" would exist for three to five years - long enough to drag Muslim NGOs into the mainstream.
The Swiss government has offered to host the entity, so it would be likely to be based in Geneva. A group of Muslim business representatives in the World Economic Forum have offered funding, while Islamic Relief said the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development and the British Red Cross had already agreed to sit on the steering committee.
Some participants in the London meeting argued there was no need for a new body, and that Muslim charities could use the same forums and codes of conduct as other members of the humanitarian community.
They said it would duplicate other established initiatives aimed at making NGOs more professional and accountable, such as the so-called Sphere standards and the Red Cross code of conduct.
There are also projects such as Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action, Compas Qualit??, People in Aid and the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response.
In response to the critics, Jafferi said: "There is a certain international bar which they have to reach. Some organisations haven&${esc.hash}39;t yet got to that level, others have. We have to travel as fast as the slowest ship in our fleet, and get everybody to a certain level of understanding so we&${esc.hash}39;re all of sufficient strength to join other forums which are already in the field."
There is a vast array of Islamic NGOs, many of them established to facilitate "zakat", the practice of alms-giving that is an obligation for observant Muslims.
There is already debate among Muslim charities, as there has been for decades among other faith-based NGOs, over whether they can and should be treated like other non-religious aid organisations.
There is also disagreement the extent to which relief work should be separated from proselytising, and whether it is acceptable to restrict aid or employment to members of one faith.
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